CHARTER APPROVAL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21756, 4 July 1945, Page 3

CHARTER APPROVAL

UNITED NATIONS

MR. TRUMAN’S CALL WASHINGTON, July 2. In an address to the Senate, President Truman asked lor ratification of the United Nations’ Charter and the Statute of the International Court of Justice. “The peoples of the' United' Nations will watch our action with great concern and high hope. They look to this body to take the lead in approving the Charter and Statute and pointing the way i'or the rest of the world No international document has been drawn up in a greater glare of publicity than this. The widespread discussion has created an impression in some quarters that there were many points of disagreement among the United Nations in drafting the Charter. Naturally, much more public attention has been given to items of disagreement than the items of agreement. The fact is that there are comparatively few points on which there was not accord from, the very beginning. The differences were finally settled by traditionally democratic methods and the free exchange of opinions The objects of the charter are clear. It seeks to prevent future wars and seeks to promote worldwide progress and better standards of living and seeks to remove economic and social causes of international conflict and unrest. The choice before the Senate is now clear. It is between this Charter and no Chatter at all. Improvements will come in future as the United Nations gain experience with the machinery and methods which they have set up. One of the first acts of .the new Government should be to rescind the non-fraternisation order in Germany, said Bishop Barnes, speaking at St. Paul's Cathedral. We needed friendship with Germany as everywhere else throughout Europe. The charter was not a bold bid for unity so generous that the world might be disarmed. Behind it lay calculations of military strength, the possibility of military intrigues, and tacit alliances such as virtually wrecked the League of Nations. Britain needed a Government with a resolute policy in order to avoid entanglements such as had' already arisen in the Levant.